Ten percent of all spinal injuries occur during sports; primarily during the sports of diving, surfing and football. Traditional close-fitting motorcycle or bicycle-style protective helmets are used amongst only nine percent of surfers.
Even though traditional crash helmets are at least 50 percent effective in reducing head and neck injuries among motorcyclists, including injuries that result in paralysis or death, motorcyclists do not uniformly choose to wear traditional crash helmets in states that do not have mandatory helmet laws. Some motorcyclists in states with mandatory helmet laws attempt to effect repeal of helmet laws due to the perceived restrictiveness of the use of such helmets.